Hydroponic cultivation and human-assisted growing methods have become more popular in highly populated cities where cultivable soils are non-existent.
Cultivable soils surrounding large cities are also on their way to disappearing due to a phenomenon called urban sprawl. In fact, cities and their suburbs are spreading outwardly over rural lands, causing a decrease in cultivable soils, as well as a reduction in production of local products such as fresh vegetables and fruits. Such a decrease in agricultural lands is causing an increase in importation of fresh products from foreign regions or countries.
It is known that buying local food has many benefits. In fact, how the food is grown, stored, transported and processed has a large impact on climate change and environment. For example, the transport-related impacts on global warming and on pollutant emissions for the importation of fresh food are quite important. The large distance that imported food travels from where it is grown to where it is purchased or consumed, often known as food miles, results in important emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Hence, increasing local production of fresh products by the use of greenhouses could have a significant positive effect on the environment.
In northern countries, such as Canada, the agricultural production of vegetables and fruits is greatly affected by seasonal changes, and is particularly minimal during winter. Hydroponic culture allows for the production of a large variety of fresh food by being independent of the season. Therefore, local production of fresh products also permits access to a large variety of high-quality products.
The implementation of hydroponic culture in large cities and suburbs could be beneficial for consumers, restaurants, etc. Although harvesting vegetables on outdoor lots due to their increasing market price is becoming popular in suburbs, population living in condominiums and apartments generally does not have access to an outdoor space where they can harvest. Thus, the implementation of hydroponic cultivation, in greenhouses for example, would give them access to freshly harvested local vegetables and to out-of-season products.
When cultivation involves the use of greenhouses that have limited space, it is important to maximize the production of crops, since such installations are capital-intensive (energy, technology, etc.)
Static methods for growing crops on multistage apparatuses to increase their growth potential are readily known. Such methods usually require manual displacement and lifting of the crops on the multistage apparatus to increase the crops' development by allowing the crops to receive more light. The disadvantages of these methods are that they usually require manual intervention, are not ergonomically efficient, and are time-consuming. It is desirable to have a method and apparatus to overcome some of the drawbacks of the prior art.